Yes, Dierks Bentley, You’re Too Late for HQ

When Dierks Bentley, his band and crew recently took a break from tour rehearsals for HQ, Bentley was not ready. Not emotionally, intellectually or technologically.

Just about a year ago, Bentley announced that he was getting rid of his smartphone in favor of a flip phone. At the time, he’d said that he didn’t want to be that guy constantly looking down at his phone. “Taking a vacation….from my iPhone! Wish me luck,” he wrote on Instagram. “Amazing how much you can do with the iPhone but equally amazing what an addictive little device it is. It sometimes feels like the never-ending blitzkrieg of news, info, etc is sucking any intelligent thought out of my brain…and there isn’t too much in there to begin with!”

And that’s all been well and good, until now. When it comes to HQ, Bentley needs to be armed just like his band of brothers. If they are playing with smartphones, Bentley needs a smartphone; even if it’s just for the weekly HQ break.

HQ, if you haven’t played it, is a free trivia app that hands out cash–or PayPal deposits–to the users who answer all 12 questions correctly. Whether there are three winners or 3,000, the prize money is divided accordingly. And crowdsourcing the intel, like Bentley’s band was trying to do, is one of the best ways to win. The hope is that whatever answer you don’t know, your buddy might.

It’s unclear exactly which day Bentley played, but had he been ready with the right technology — and his Vanderbilt University degree — he could’ve won about $3,600 on April 11, when there were more than two million players and 83 winners.